Leave no dead horse unflogged (was ethics, and is long)

["Matthew Bin" <mattbin -at- hotmail -dot- com>]

I'm posting some parts of my response to Dawn's statement of ethics; not 
because this thread hasn't gone on too long already, but because there is an 
issue in the topic that has not been, to my taste, answered satisfactorily.

That issue is the issue of where ethics come from. The only answers I've 
seen are "everyone has their own" (and I don't agree with that; those I 
understand to be called morals) or "there is no general standard" (which I 
agree with, though I do not believe that it is impossible or even a waste of 
time to create one for our industry).

The more I think about the STC publishing a set of ethical standards, the 
more I like it. A generally known (if not universally accepted) set of 
standards is a great starting point. Any system beats no system; any ethical 
system, therefore, beats no ethical system.

Anyhow, here's the relevant bit from my response to the statement.




I cannot speak for most, or even many, technical communicators. However, in 
my experience, ethics have been a primary point of concern and discussion in 
many of my projects. (These projects largely consisted of consulting work 
for public ministries.)

In completing well-funded year 2000 projects, for example, where there were 
no rules to speak of, and very little in the way of expectations other than 
"make sure our equipment doesn't fail!".

We had a 100-member team and spent $35 million on the project. It would have 
been easy to make things up, really, because when it all came down to it, 
the Ministry was getting a 110-page report for its $35M (although there was 
plenty of supporting documentation). We could have fleeced them. We could 
have done half the work, and taken them to the cleaners.

I was a part of the top management for this project (though I was a worker, 
not a manager, myself). There were constantly questions and discussions of 
what it was permissible to say in these reports, and how we could best 
represent our own interests (finish project, earn money) while remaining 
truthful and not misleading the client. It wasn't even a matter of being 
accurate but hiding truth; we were very concerned that the client would 
misconstrue our findings and work, since it depended greatly on the 
statistics that came out of that work.

Now, this wasn't technical writing in the sense of product documentation; 
but it was writing on a technical subject, for a technical project. The 
particular project I'm thinking of remains the high point in my career as a 
tech writer.

Incidentally, about halfway through the project the ministry began auditing 
our work with one of the Big Six consulting firms (and we all know how 
ethically they act, now, don't we, Mr Andersen). Although the auditors did 
their best, the projects I worked on easily passed muster, because we acted 
honestly throughout them. All auditors can do, in those cases, is request 
more information. (Or they can wilfully misconstrue what we tell them; that 
was another problem we had, but when it comes down to brass tacks, ignorant 
people can say what they want but the brass tacks remain.)

While I have not always been in situations that confronted ethical questions 
so straightforwardly, this way of working remains part of my approach. Not 
because I'm such a good person, but because I learned that the ethical 
approach, if you're willing and able to spend the additional energy it 
sometimes takes to act ethically, your life becomes easier.

By the way, my STC membership has lapsed again and I haven't seen Interlog 
for a couple of years. I don't know if they have the same definition for 
"ethical" that I do; I see "ethics" as a set of principles that both the 
worker and client (or whatever you want to call the two parties in the 
transaction) mutually (if tactily) agree are required. That means they're 
relative, often not stated, and change over time and from client to client. 
I don't know if the STC has a stated ethical standard similar to what many 
professional engineering organizations have adopted, but it would be worth 
having one. Only principles that are clear and openly stated can be, in my 
mind, strictly called "ethics".


Cheers,
M@



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